Pricing

HOW BETTER TREATMENT SAVES YOU MONEY

It doesn’t cost more to come here – it costs you less.

Coming here to AHC to get focused out-of-network care is likely to save you money on health care this year, despite the initial investment. By coming here, you get an expert guide to your own medical system – a team who knows how to get you the most value from your insurance benefits, what tests and referrals you need, and importantly, which ones you don’t. That saves you both time and money. Getting better also helps – as people get better, their health care costs go down. Visits to AHC are covered under your out of network benefits. But even for those who receive no money back for visits here, we are still lowering their overall annual medical bill.

How do we know this?

As an out-of-network, direct-pay practice, we are very sensitive to value-based care. After all, how much good can we do if we are not affordable? So for the last 18 months, we’ve been partnering with our patients to track how much they have been paying to us, and also how much they have paid out of pocket for their annual medical expenses (including deductibles, copays, co-insurance, etc). We expected to see that patients paid somewhat more overall, but got better outcomes. We did not expect that by seeing us, patients would save money – Boy were we happily surprised. And a little bit proud.

It turns out that getting the right care not only improves outcomes, it also lowers total costs. Our clients, on average, paid LESS per year in total medical expenditures after starting care with us, not more. Where did that savings come from? Fewer Primary Care visits. Fewer Urgent care and ER visits. Lower medication costs.

If they had insurance how could that be?

For most people they never met their annual deductible, which meant they were paying for everything out of pocket to begin with. For those who were meeting their deductible – and more – they were paying huge amounts for care that wasn’t working. Coming here fixed that.

Was this the case for everyone?

Nope, some people did spend more. On what? Most commonly on getting the right MRI or CT, getting the right labs, and getting to the bottom of what was wrong. Was that all just a waste of money? Nope – because for some of these people, these tests showed us the underlying problem driving their pain, and a chance to get them better.

And here’s really good news –

More than a dozen times in the last 18 months, we haven’t just helped someone with their headache – we’ve saved their life. We think quality care matters, and we take it seriously. And at the end of the day, that’s why people come here.

FINANCIAL POLICY

The Ament Headache Center is a “Direct Pay” practice. This means that payment in full is expected at the time of service. We accept cash, checks, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, & American Express.

If you have medical insurance (including Medicare and TriCare), we would like to help you receive the maximum allowable benefits. Please present your insurance card at each visit. As a courtesy, we will provide you with the form to send to your insurance company, and they will reimburse you directly, based on the specifics of your policy, according to your “out of network” benefits.

For participants in Medicaid and all other government-sponsored plans, the visits are not reimbursable at this time.